The Wolfepack Chronicles: Happy Birthday to Me!

Monday the 16th was my birthday.

I turned 25 years old.

That's right, I am no longer in my "early 20s" which is always thought of as a time of being a college student and attending keg parties (not that that was me, my early 20s were spent in grad school and getting married).

Now I am in my mid-twenties, a more respectable and mature time of life.

Not that turning 25 got me any closer to looking 25, someone thought I was 16 just the other day.

If you so much as think "you'll appreciate it when you're older" I'll ban you from this blog.

Back to my birthday, since my birthday was on a Monday, we decided to celebrate the weekend before.

The birthday celebrations started Friday morning with me going and buying my "birthday outfit" (not to be confused with my birthday suit)

That has become tradition the past couple years as my birthday present.

Just in case you didn't know, I love clothes.

This was the outfit I got (sorry for the crappy picture, I am not good at self portraits).

Shirt: Banana Republic Outlet
Pants: American Eagle
Shoes: Nine West
Necklace: Forever 21

Entire outfit: less than $100

I love buying outfits.

Then for dinner Friday we had red wine braised short ribs that I made (I love short ribs).

Then Saturday started with french toast made with this bread I baked:

Then I got dressed up in my birthday outfit and Stephen and I headed to Waikiki and had lunch at Yardhouse where I had this:

"This" being a Black Velvet: hard pear cider and Guinness.

And for dessert we tried a beer float made with a double chocolate stout and vanilla ice cream.

I was apprehensive but it turned out to be really good.

We then headed to the mall so we could get some lose tea from a cool tea store they have there (we really like tea).

We wandered around there and ended up buying Stephen a new outfit, which I am always thrilled to do because he has so few civilian clothes and always refuses to get more.

I had made the unfortunate choice of not changing into flip flops at the mall and butchered my feet in my new shoes.

I was very sad when we went to dinner and I couldn't wear them.

When went to dinner at a restaurant called Epic and I had a really tasty mac 'n cheese (I'm a sucker for fancy mac 'n cheese) and then a chocolate peanut butter soufflé which was delicious!

Sunday was church and then Monday was my actual birthday.

Now there was one thing left to do for my birthday and that was to make my cake.

Now I have made this cake for my last few birthdays and that is the only time all year that I have it.

Usually I eat the whole thing myself, no I'm not joking, ask Stephen (He's not allowed to have any because he cant appreciate it).

My cake is a flourless chocolate cake.

To know what it taste like, think of the richest chocolate dessert you have ever had....now times that by 10, that's my cake.

This cake was also my wedding cake.

As seen here:

This cake was made by a friend of the family who was just completing culinary school and was told by his instructors that this cake could not be made at this size but he did it and it only took:

7lbs of chocolate
7lbs of sugar
and
40 eggs

It was awesome.

I literally had nightmares during our honeymoon that my mom threw away the leftovers.

So here's the cake making process:

WARNING: The following pictures may cause feelings of envy, jealously and hunger as well as an immense craving for chocolate.

First, get a lot of high quality chocolate, 1 pound to be exact.

I use a locally made chocolate that I love but I have also used Valrhona chocolate which is amazing as well.

Then chop it up (try not to eat too much while chopping).

Then melt it (try not to eat too much off the spatula).

Then you whip up some sugar and eggs.

This is the point where things started to go badly for me.

I am terrible when it comes to whipping eggs, I can never get the right consistency.

Unfortunately my kitchen aid mixer is broken so I tried to whisk it by hand, for 2 minutes.

Yeah, that lasted about 10 seconds when I realized, I am so not strong enough for this.

My poor arm muscles (or lack there of) were burning!

So then I pulled out my hand held mixer but that still didnt get it to the right consistency and I couldn't risk wasting all that good chocolate if I didn't get the eggs right.

So I dumped it out and started over.

Now I should clarify that when I say my mixer is broken, I mean that when I turn it on it makes an awful grinding noise and gets really hot.

So now with my second batch I decided to push my mixer to the limit.

I had it going the full 2 minutes grinding away as I was cheering it on, "Come on! You can do it!" "Push past the pain!"

And it worked!

So I poured in the melted chocolate, mixed and put it in the pan and in the oven and let out a loud sigh and said, "Now I dont have to worry about messing it up."

Then came the "Crap!" and the slap on the forehead, I had forgotten to put in the cocoa powder!!

I quickly pulled the pan out of the over, scooped the batter back into to bowl, added the cocoa powder and mixed, threw it into a new pan and into the oven and again let out a big sigh and a prayer that it would turn out alright.

45 minutes later out came this: